[Nigel Mace]

I don't often do this kind of thing but an Oldie comp once triggered a seriously meant tribute to my second home. It came out like this.

ITALY

From Leonardo’s distance to the pitch of roofs,
from cherry-loping vines to loggias of ease,
the shifting shapes of light across this land are proofs
that patinas from cultured living still best please;
that swelling slope, its Raphael-cypress crest,
those sprawling cities skewered by ancient towers
whose distant campaniles’ peelings blessed
a world, which they bequeathed
to rest, with longing at the heart of ours.

And scything through its spine and constant mountains, sweep
futurist lanes that speed bella figura’s wheels,
while elegant design and daring colours leap
from every corso’s travertine, so sight appeals
to jaded retinas, and with life feeds
a longing long remembered from some past
in which we’d known what truly fills our needs -
joy in human pleasures,
that last as long as this land and its deeds.